Free The City Burns: A Prepper's Struggle for The Truth by BJ Knights

stationed.”
     
    Jim’s grip on the bottle loosened as it hung limp between his fingers. Locke continued, “It was a classified mission in an area where we weren’t supposed to be. The boys back home had to cover their asses and mark him as a deserter to stop a war from happening.”
     
    “Why are you telling me this?” asked Jim. “So I’ll understand why you didn’t tell me what was really going on?” The words left Jim’s mouth with a tone that was meant to sting. “No,” Locke said. “I told you because I thought you should know that your father wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t afraid of what needed to be done.”
     
    He started to leave when Jim spoke again.
    “We can’t stop it,” Jim turned around, “that’s what Matt told me when he was holding his guts in.” “Stop what?” Locke asked. Jim walked over and slid the whiskey bottle back on the table. “He didn’t say, but whatever it is it has something to do with the file that Twink stopped from being uploaded,” he said.
     
    Locke nodded. “It’s a good place to start looking.”
     
    Jim walked up to him. “Whatever you find out I want in on it. I want to find the bastards that are behind this,” Jim demanded. Locke put his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “The United States military owes you a great debt, son.” Jim shrugged Locke’s hand off him. “There isn’t anything you can give me to undo what I did.” Jim left Locke alone in the tent as he slid outside.
     
    Twink and Brett were outside waiting for him. Brett embraced him in a hug, then Twink. Coyle stumbled out of the adjacent tent sporting a black eye as he rubbed his shoulder.
     
    “Just a little piece of advice for you boys,” Coyle turned back around and three very pissed, angry men were looking at him, “don’t pretend to shoot military personnel,” he said. “They don’t like it much.”
    Brett and Twink laughed. Jim saw Samantha and Annie in a jeep in the distance. He stood for a moment, then decided to walk over. Samantha saw him coming and she met him in the middle before he got all the way over to the jeep. Jim looked back into the jeep and saw Annie staring blankly into Tigs who sat on her lap. “How’s she doing?” he asked.
     
    “Not good,” she said. The words came out icy, cold.
    Samantha stood there with her arms crossed, with bits of caked mud on her face and shirt stained with her husband’s blood.
    “I know why you did it,” she said.
    Jim stood there silently.
    “I’ll be able to forgive you one day. Just not now,” she said.
     
    Jim simply nodded without response. Samantha turned and went back to her daughter. As Jim watched her walk away he’d thought about all he’d lost. He lost his home in San Diego. He lost his family in the desert. He’d been shot at and beaten bloody by people who wanted to hurt him. Now he had only one thing left.
     
    He only had one thought on his mind. He was going to find the people behind this. He would hunt them down and make sure they’d pay. He was going to make them feel what he felt and God help anyone that got in his way.